


Iron and Silver

by DreadfulShieldmaiden



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Connections between Jessica Jones and Daredevil, F/M, Jessica Jones Spoilers, Marvel Cinematic Universe - Freeform, Porn With Plot, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:51:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6411409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadfulShieldmaiden/pseuds/DreadfulShieldmaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank needs to find the real Blacksmith and avenge his family. His bloody crusade brings him back to Karen Page, now a famous journalist. Frank uses Page's help to find the killer of his family, but his come back into Page's life could drag both of them into an abyss of blood and darkness (and rough sex).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Screaming Lambs at night.

**Author's Note:**

> Just like Netflix, I will publish a bunch of chapters at the same time.   
> I modified Simpson's story a little so it could fit into Castle's plot.  
> I suggest listening a metal rock band called Graveyard while reading it.

 

_“Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won't you?”._

Dr. Hannibal Lecter – The Silence of the Lambs – Harris, Thomas.

_Tonight a demon came into my head_   
_And tried to choke me in my sleep_

Siren – Graveyard

 

Karen Page’s nights were tough. It was like her mind was in a war against herself. If during the day Miss Page had managed to turn herself into one of the more respectable investigative journalists of New York, the night trapped her into terrible abysses of despair. The nightmares never left her after she saw the Punisher executing a man and also after Matt’s revelation.

  
There were plenty of strange dreams and awful nightmares. But the one that currently tormented her was the one where she was being hunted by Daredevil. At some point in the nightmare, she stops, turns to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and takes him down, blowing Matt’s brain with a brutal shot on his face.

 

At that point, in the terrible dream, she notices she is not Karen Page, but rather, she is the Punisher, blood-soaked and holding a gun. The most terrible thing she could feel about the nightmare was how good, how terribly amazing she felt after killing Matt. She never thought of killing Daredevil, she thought of killing Matt. Feeling so aligned to an unknown brutality scared Karen to death.

 

The best choice Karen had during the day to forget her terrible nights had been, so far, to bury herself in her investigations. She had exposed one net of sexual exploration in Spanish Harlem. She got in touch with Latin-American women who were forced into the United States and had to work in a slavery system offering their bodies to the most terrible sexual experience with rich guys from New York. The Bulletin helped the cops and the new detective of Hell’s Kitchen to find out who were the articulators and the case exposed an international scheme of human traffic which was now being investigated by FBI. Besides that, Karen pursued cases of pedophile websites and homophobic and misogynist social groups on Facebook, which revealed to be connected to brutal physical attacks on Hell’s Kitchen and Chinatown.

 

Her exclusive cases gave her an important name in New York’s journalist community. She had nothing to complain about her economic life, at least, way better than her Nelson & Mudorck times. Her boss kept pushing her toward the idea of writing a book; he always said she deserved a Pulitzer or something like that. Karen laughed and said it was too early, but one part of her nourished the idea.

 

Working gave her happiness. It made her feel like she was useful and could make a difference, she could help people, she could stand for what she believed in. While daylight was on, keeping her busy and safe in her office in the Bulletin, she was fine. The twilight brought her troubles, the night and its darkness came along with Karen’s almost daily alcoholic crisis. There were days when she could finish a vodka bottle, alone. She started smoking too. She knew it was probably the root of her terrible nightmares, but she wondered if that was real, for they started before the alcoholic crisis. She knew she should seek a professional help, but she wasn’t really caring about that. It was like one part of her felt she deserved the mental suffering, like she deserved to be punished. Her brother’s face flashed into her dreams as well.  
But she always managed to arrive at Bulletin looking safe and brand new. Make up was a good help in lying.

(She noticed she started to be good at lying).

-

Coming back from the Bulletin, she started to feel like someone was watching over her. She felt eyes on her back. She stared around and the streets were empty. She started taking her .0380 with her.

 

A gun could be a girl’s best friend.

  
-

 

One day, she saw a glimpse of a white skull in a roof in front of her new apartment building. She prayed silently to be just an illusion.

 

She whispered in the dark, before finishing a new bottle of vodka:

 

“You’re dead. Stay this way.”


	2. Alone inside the demon's house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deborah Woll said she reread the Silence of the Lambs to live Karen and Frank's relationship and there will always be a Harris quote because of it.  
> Thanks, Deborah.

_Suddenly I was alone inside the demon's house_   
_He climbed the walls with blood_   
_And murder glowing through his eyes_   
_And I couldn't escape_   
_And every move I made was wrong_

  
Siren – Graveyard

 

_“Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.”_

 

Dr. Hannibal Lecter – Red Dragon – Harris, Thomas.

 

Frank wished he could have nightmares. When he closed his eyes, there was only a black and empty space.

 

His personal crusade for revenge toward the Blacksmith hadn’t ended. Schoonover wasn’t the Blacksmith. Frank’s bloody nights on the poorest part of New York resulted in getting to know that there was still heroin coming into the docks by the Blacksmith. Frank kept exploding ships on the docks and killing people in it; leaving the heroin to be apprehended by the cops. But that did not help him to get to the real Blacksmith. These recent days kept Frank asking himself if it was a person at all. Schoonover said it was all going back to the war. 

 

The worst part of it is that Frank didn’t remember what happened during their captivity in Kandahar. Most of the Kandahar’s days under the enemy’s guard were a blackout in his mind. That was when he stopped dreaming. His survival primal needs kept him alive and helped him to overcome the captivity and freeing his team. Remembering what happened during these days was beyond his capacity.

 

And he tried.

 

He tried so hard he got headache. 

 

But there it was the blackout.

 

Unfortunately, his brutality couldn’t extract all the information he needed. There were roles that needed to be fulfilled so they could lead him back to Kandahar and to the real Blacksmith. Frank even left Hell’s Kitchen for some months to try to figure out more information about the Blacksmith, he went down South and up North.

 

Nothing.

 

There was some information that only some “smart” people could access. He knew one smart person who could help him.

-

 

He followed her at night, when she was coming back home. 

 

Why she was still in Hell’s Kitchen and how she was still alive were good questions. He didn’t know the answer for the first, but the second one he kind knew. He had eventually killed all the people who he discovered wanted to kill Karen.

 

He killed pimp, gang members, pedophiles, neonazi guys and other freaks who cultivated the idea of harming her somehow. Generally, he disappeared with the bodies so it didn’t get to her through the cops. 

 

She would notice. 

 

She was too smart.

 

 

-

 

He kept watching around her home, her new apartment. Some days he was quite sure she knew it was him.

 

He wondered how she would react to him asking help after he dismissed her with such brutality. He hoped her desire to investigate was stronger than her resentment.

 


	3. Rodeo

  
_“This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material?”_

Marcus Aurelius

 

_I’m losing all battles_   
_All over again_   
_I’m going to war_   
_To war with myself_

Endless Night – Graveyard

 

 

Karen’s new investigation case was consuming her time in such way she decided to stop drinking for a while. But she wished she didn’t so she could lie to herself that this night was an alcoholic illusion.

 

She was on her sofa, researching on the new corporation in town that was trying to expulse a poor Latin community of their building in Harlem. That made her thought of Wilson Fisk – the kingpin, she thought, that’s how they’re calling him on the streets. She hoped the Bulletin’s denounce would help the case to gain judicial visibility, she even contacted Matthew to try to help these folks – Mudorck & Mudorck, it fits better, she thought, bitterly. 

 

She listened to strange noises outside the window. She didn’t pay attention because she used to feed cats and they sometimes returned in the same day wanting more food. She had run out of cat food and she couldn’t be of big help for them now, so she just kept searching on Roxxon corp for good. 

 

But the noises started to bother her.

 

Karen didn’t forget what happened in the past year. She took her empty vodka bottle and kept it by her side, for it was the closest defensive tool near her, in the garbage. She would throw it at whoever would invade her apartment. Then she would take her gun and blow the brain of this son of a bitch out, she would paint the walls with blood.

 

They’d learn not to mess with a criminal journalist.

 

Then it happened.

-

 

There was a giant noise. She screamed, put her laptop away and throw the bottle right on the direction of the window, glass finding glass in an orgy of small mirrors meeting themselves and falling to the ground like snow flocks. She saw the glass breaking in slow motion, initially paralyzed on fear. 

 

Then she jumped out of her couch and went into her bedroom, taking her 0.380 from the drawer and pointing out.

 

“Stay right where you are.” She screamed, to the person. 

 

That’s when she saw the white skull and she knew who it was.

 

“Fuck! I’d prefer you dead”, she said, the gun was still pointed to him.

 

“Hm.” He said, and then she noticed the vodka bottle had caught the low part of his jaw and he was bleeding. “You almost killed to prove that.”.

 

“What do you want?” she asked him. “I don’t need to eyewitness any other murder, thank you, I’ve got my fair share.”.

 

He muttered something.

 

“I need you to help me finding the Blacksmith.” He said.

 

“You killed him, as far as I can remember.” 

 

“The real Blacksmith.” 

 

“Real?”

 

“He’s smoke. I try, but he is never there. Never anywhere” Frank said, and she could see something near to despair in his face. Frank wasn’t a facially expressive or talking person, but his eyes were more tormented than before.

 

“Frank, I really wanted to help you” she said, still holding up the gun. “I tried so hard as I never tried in my whole life. But then, you said to me that you were dead. I took your word. I have other people to care about right now, sorry.” 

 

 

“But you still want the headlines right?”

 

“Headlines?” 

 

“There might be more to it. Kandahar and the Blacksmith. Something happened back there. Back in the war. I can’t remember what is it. But whatever happened could be a bombastic revelation about military forces and the army.”.

 

Karen’s interesting sparked, as a trigger pulled inside her journalist mind.

 

“I think they did something to us. Someone did something to us.” Frank said. 

 

“And this something… You think it may be connected to the sting in the Central Park? And why they wanted you and your family killed?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I can give it a try. I have to publish something important, but I will research about Kandahar, as well. Just come back on a few nights, I’m really busy right now.” 

 

“I’m sorry for the window” he whispered. “It didn’t open, so I had to break it.”. 

 

“You have a serious problem with knocking someone’s door, right?” Karen said, rolling her eyes.

 

He giggled.

 

“Won’t you drop the gun?”

 

“When you’re gone.” She said.

 

“I thought we had been through this before.”.

 

“But then you died and that’s how I treat dead people. Good bye, Frank.”. She pulled the trigger and the shot got right near to his shoulder, centimeters from his shirt, the bullet getting lost into the night. 

 

 _Definitely, not her first rodeo._ Frank thought, then he went out through the broken widow, bleeding and alone, vanishing into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

_“It occurred to Dr. Lecter in the moment that with all his knowledge and intrusion, he could never entirely predict her, or own her at all. He could feed the caterpillar, he could whisper through the chrysalis; what hatched out followed its own nature and was beyond him. He wondered if she had the .45 on her leg beneath the gown.”._

Hannibal – Harris, Thomas.

 

_I'm neither, or I'm everything in between_   
_I'm nothing, or something that you've never ever seen_

The Apple and the Tree – Graveyard

 

 

She intrigued him.

 

Karen looked like a damsel in distress, but somehow she was everything but that.

 

There was something strangely out of place about her. Frank wasn’t a man of words, he was a soldier, born to action, but if he knew how to put it, he might put it, she was a storm in making. There were many dark things about Karen. He could not say it, not even to himself, but he could sense it. He could smell it under her fancy perfume. It was stronger than pheromone. 

 

That was, probably, the unconscious reason he came to her.

 

He heard about a lady, Jones, her last name. What was her first?

 

Jones. Jessica Jones. That’s her name. 

 

He heard she was a badass, she got some shitbag butts kicked. And that she was really good at discovering things. But he did not go to her. He went back to Karen because some part of his injured brain could smell the depths of chaos lying within Page and he wished it could make her be useful to him.

 

 

There was a new glass on the window. He knocked it instead of breaking this time.

 

She came to him and opened it. Not pointing a gun, but he knew it was either hidden on her clothes or in the drawer on the bedroom. 

 

“Do you have something about Kandahar?”, he asked.

 

“I don’t know. I have searched about Kandahar and, of course, there is nothing about it on regular news website. Nothing even on the ones specialized on the war on Afghanistan. I just found a note saying that a specialized team was captured by enemy forces.”

 

“Hmm.” He said, sitting on her couch.

 

“But I did find out that by the time Kandahar was under attack there was no other register of capturing specialized military teams. I mean, it’s more like guerrilla war. They exploded things and killed civilians and soldiers, but there wasn’t a register of capturing. If there was any, they would kill some of you and shared it online. They would’ve asked for money or imposed conditions to free you. There is no register of any of it.” Karen talked while she walked through her apartment, as if she was chasing her thoughts around the living room. Frank couldn’t help but stare to her sultry milky legs while she moved.

 

“It means that… It could have been someone else than your Afghanistan enemies to rapt you. Someone else with other interests.” She said. 

 

“Yeah. Who?”

 

“That’s the big question, sure.” she says. “I heard about a strange case here in Hell’s Kitchen.”

 

“Strange case?”

 

“Reyes was on it, by the way. A lady called Jessica Jones. She made a mess in the docks. But before that, apparently she was attacked by a guy who was possessed.”, Karen just reached for some papers in her room’s drawer. “He’s a cop. He’s an ex-soldier. Simpson, that’s his name.”

 

Karen showed him a piece of old newspaper. It was about the honorable work of a new cop and ex-war hero. The guy looked like a cheap Captain America.

 

“Hero. Bullshit.”, Frank whispered.

 

“Will Simpson, that’s the guy’s name. This guy has volunteered in a military program in Afghanistan. This program is like some researching on super soldiers. Enhancing a soldier’s performance so much that they can be an one man’s army or something like that.” Page looked cautious, looking at him to see his reaction.

 

“How does all of that has to do with me?”

 

“This program traces back to 2nd World War. Their methods to volunteer were… Not legal at all. They were dropped from Afghanistan because of that, the federal government cut all its connection with the research.”

 

“How did you cross with this guy’s story?”

 

“I searched in hospital files to see any post war vets from Afghanistan and Iran to try to trace them back to Kandahar. Nothing. All of them are either mad or dead. Or out of the United States.”

 

“Everyone but me.”

 

“And Simpson.”. Page said. 

 

“I will talk to this girl, Jones” Frank said.

 

“No, please. She’s under police investigation. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to get near her. I will reach out for her.”

 

“How did you get access to all of that?” he asked.

 

“Frank, you kill and I dig. That’s how people like me and you survive. Doing the best they know how to do.”.

 

“People like us? I don’t think you want to be like me.” 

 

“Ain’t my first rodeo.” Karen whispered, softly.

 

She went on her bedroom to pack the Simpson newspaper on the Jones’ files. 

 

Frank wasn’t there when she came back.


	5. Jones

  
_"And be grateful. Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real."_

Dr. Hannibal Lecter – Red Dragon – Harris, Thomas.

 

_"Do you believe you could change me the way I've changed you?"_

Dr. Hannibal Lecter – Hannibal, NBC – Fuller, Bryan.

 

 

She was beautiful, Page thought. Jessica Jones was beautiful and tough. Her ivory skin made her look like some ancient war goddess and her serious expression totally fit the idea.

 

 

Karen was lucky to get an hour with her, she heard the Alias Investigation corp. was really famous after Jones killed a mind manipulator called Kilgrave. Some people said she was the best investigator in town, although not very ethics. 

 

 

“So, you wanna know what’s going on with Simpson?”

 

 

“Yes, please.”

 

 

“Miss Karen Page, I am much honored to be contacted by a famous journalist, I love you work at the Bulletin. Girl, you gotta bullocks. But the only thing I can say about Simpson is that he is nuts. He’s insane. Stay away from his bad shit, please.”

 

 

“My money comes from drowning into the bad shit, Miss Jones.”

 

 

Jessica laughed.

 

 

“You’re not going to leave me alone, right?”

 

 

“Not until I know everything you know about Simpson. It’s a case.”.

 

 

“A professional case? For the Bulletin?” Jones scrutinized Page’s face.

 

 

“Maybe it is. Miss Jones, I am the one who asks questions here.” Karen said.

 

 

“Sorry. Bad professional habits die hard.”.

 

 

“I see.”.

 

 

“Word is on the street that you were Castle’s girl.”

 

“What? Word on the streets? I am nobody’s girl.”

 

 

“Things, you hear around. I heard many things on the past months, about the Devil and a lot of chaos on the docks; it is my work to listen. Some people saw you around with the Punisher. I will tell you everything I know about Simpson…”

 

 

“Thank you.”

 

 

“But I don’t want to have my shit mixed with anyone’s else shit. Especially if it is shit from a psycho like Castle. I have got my own issues to deal with. And be aware of him and his enemies. Take care of yourself, Karen Page, you’re going through a dark road.”

 

 

“I am here. I have gone too far to go back now.”

 

 

Jones sighed. 

 

 

And she told everything she knew about Simpson, IGH program and Combat Enhancers.

 

-

 

After Jones finished her story on Simpson, Karen definitely saw a going connection to Castle’s behavior and she was decided to research on something similar.

 

“Thank you, Jessica. May I call you like that?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Good bye.”, Page got up and was about to left when Jessica called her.

 

“Lady, you’re going into real deep shit. Please, take care of yourself.”

 

Karen showed her gun to Jessica.

 

“Way better, ma’am” Jessica smiled.

 

-

 

“Are you saying I’m someone’s fucked up robot?” Frank said, clearly not pleased with the idea.

 

Karen poured black coffee into his cup.

 

“No, I do not have any conclusions at all. But these IGH researchers Jones told me about were in Afghanistan and Iraq. Jones also said the Simpson guy just disappeared. Right now, nobody knows where he is. Someone tried to kill you. There are missing pieces, but it is really too much coincidences overlapping right?”

 

 

“Hmm. Yeah.”

 

 

“And there are some other Enhancing Soldier Programs. It was a pretty common military project from the Second World War on. I think it somehow survived onto post-modern times.”

 

“You mean the Russians?”

 

“Yes, they are involved. There must be plenty of this kind of research from the Old USRR, I will find out more about it.”

 

“I know something about someone called Black Widow. She is like that, an enhanced female agent. She is Russian. I heard about her on the army.” Frank said.

 

 

“You’ve got something big. That’s great. Black Widow, I will search about her as well.” Page sat beside him on the couch and started writing down on a small notebook.

 

 

He stared down at her beautiful delicate hands and her goddess-like profile. Sometimes she made him think about his old lady. How Maria was when they started to date. Maria was young and full of life. 

 

 

“Okay, Frank, I know it is hard, but if you can remember anything…”

 

 

“I said to you. There is nothing about the time we spent in the captivity in Kandahar I remember. It is a complete blackout.”.

 

 

“How were you trapped?”

 

 

“We were trapped in a building. There was a lot of chaos; blood and smoke. And they took us somewhere. It was cold. Then, the blackout. I remember one day I fought against the coldness and found a way out, I took my men with me.”

 

“The place you stood in? How was it?”

 

“A bunker like any other. It was underground. Underneath the earth. It was difficult to breath and go back, but we got to do it.”.

 

“What about after that?”

 

“The sunlight. We were in the desert. We got to came back to the station after days without food or water. There was just sun and sand.”

 

“Nothing else?”

 

 

“I’ve told you about one million times, ma’am. Nothing else.”

 

“Do you have scars from that?”

 

He laughed.

 

“I have about a thousand scars. You will never find out which one belongs to this moment.”

 

“Okay, Frank. If you can remember anything else, just tell me. I will keep searching.”

 

He finished his coffee and after that, he disappeared into the night.

 

 

Karen went to sleep. It was a really strange thing how she felt about searching Frank’s life story. Somehow she got attached to the need of helping him. Somehow she thought of him as a weird kind of hero. A hero with its own questionable honor code. A hero, nonetheless. Sometimes, she swore to herself she could listen to him talking about his war times for hours. He wasn’t the smartest guy and not even the better one with words, but everything came from him with such an intensity that she could feel dragged into his narrative, as she was taken by his controversial speech on his trial. 

 

There was some kind of intense aura around Frank that intensely attracted her. It was like she was attached to the mission of helping him to finish his crusade. If she could do so, maybe there was some salvation to him. Maybe there was some salvation to her. If Frank could be a hero, she could be a hero.

 

And if he could be a monster…


	6. Kingpin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just read "PunisherMAX" and I HAD to write something.  
> I took Dr. Bayer from there, as well as Fisk's hate for Frank.  
> I'll probably keep adding some elements from the comics, Micro, a Punisher villain, and Jones' source on this chapter is from there. But everything about them will be explained throughout the other chapters, so you don't have to Google it.  
> Enjoy =)

_“Nothing happened to me. I happened.”_

Dr. Hannibal Lecter – The Silence of the Lambs – Harris, Thomas.

 

 

[after]  
Karen was blood bathed.

There was blood in every part of her. She was holding a gun and there was a man lying down at her feet, his head exploded. Karen unloaded all bullets of her gun into the back of his head. He did not even know what killed him. She saw the head exploding, the blood flowing like some sacred and damned waterfall, spilling all around her, the blood coming with the brain parts, the body falling to the ground, lifeless.

The man wasn’t Matt. This wasn’t a dream. This was real.

“Thanks, Karen.” She looked to Frank, lying next to the body. Karen didn’t pay attention to him, she was static. She couldn’t move.

She killed a man, again.

“Page!” Frank screamed. “Call Dr. Bayer, his number. The notebook. The drawer .” he couldn’t speak at all, she noticed the dead guy was holding a sledgehammer, she knew he was using it against Frank.

She noticed Frank was bleeding a river and finally got to wake up from her static state. She took the notebook and called the man on her phone, she muttered disconnected words. The man got it when she said “Castle”. He was coming. _My fingerprint is bloody. There is blood all over me,_ Karen thought.

She killed a man, again.

 

  
[before]

Fisk talked to Valdez brothers. He wanted someone to take care of the Punisher. Frank haunted him as a devil, a rock on his path to retake Hell’s Kitchen. If he could finish him off before going out of jail, that would be great.

There was a guy, he was a Russian ex-con, a legendary professional killer that used to work with the Irish, and had become a new Christian after his marriage, living  on a strange isolated community.

His wife was dying and he needed any help he could get. Fisk managed, through his lawyer, to get medical help to his wife. He accepted killing Frank in exchange for Fisk’s help.

The kingpin was very good at helping people.

 

 

[meanwhile: Page]

Karen paid Jones to discover more about the IGH program. The detective refused at first, but Karen swore Frank would never bother Jessica and that Karen and Frank would disappear from Jones’ life after that.

Jones found a name and a lot of information, Karen was astonished with how much Jessica discovered.

“How did you get access to all of this? I mean this IGH program it’s like… Really, a fucking big deal of a secret!”.

“Micro helped.” Jessica said, as if it was obvious like that.

“Micro?”

“Lieberman. He knows your friend, the Punisher.” Jones stared at Karen, but Page had never heard about him. “Okay, he’s weird as fuck, but his information is the best in town.” Jones wrote his name under the other name on the front of the file she gave to Karen. This big name on the file was “Dr. Kozlov”.

“Now, I hope you two have fun with all of this.” Jessica said. Karen took the file and her heart rushed with adrenaline. Karen thanked Jessica, paying her a bonus. Karen rushed out of Jessica’s apartment, holding the file and really excited with Jones’ discoveries.

“And I hope you don’t come back.” Jessica said, closing the door, when Karen was out of her sight.

 

  
Karen knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t wait for Frank to show up at her apartment. She decided to go into his. When he vaguely mentioned something about the street he lived in, she sought for it and found out where he was currently living. Of course she never told him that she knew his address, he would move out of it for sure.

After reading a few enlightening pages about Kozlov, IGH and Enhanced Drugs, Karen drove right away downtown all her way to the poorest part of Chinatown.

There was something big coming for them, she knew.

 

[meanwhile: Frank]

 

Obviously, Castle never had any guests. Everyone he loved either died or left him. Or they thought he was dead.

  
His blood went cold when he heard a knock on the door.

  
“Who’s it?” he asked.

“Delivery for Castle.”.

He didn’t even had a chance to pick up his gun. A bull-sized man invaded his house, breaking the door and hammering his shoulder – He wanted my face, Frank thought, protecting his head with his shoulder, kicking the bastard – It’s like kicking a fucking rock – and then being hammered in his left ribs. The breathing went out of his body, his legs failed, he got into the floor.

 _Fisk, you damned motherfucker!!,_ Frank thought.

 

[meanwhile: Page]

The place was as bad as the building the Roxx corp. wanted to buy on Spanish Harlem. It was decrepit and terribly dark. The air inside there was moist and heavy. She climbed the stairs carefully, hoping the woody steps won’t break under her.

The guy smoking weed on the front of the building told her that someone Frankish-like lived in the second floor, although he barely saw the guy around.

“He’s not a social kind, right, Miss?”

“It’s him.” She knew it.

She heard the racket before she saw it. She took her gun immediately. She walked carefully in the dark hall, near to the walls. The other doors were closed. Maybe people were just used to that kind of noise on the neighborhood. Then she saw the broken door. She saw the beast like man hanging an enormous hammer over his head. She pointed her gun to him as a natural reaction. She saw Frank.

She ran like there was a devil on her trail.

She exploded the man’s head before getting into the apartment, she pulled the trigger several times until the gun was unloaded.

 

  
[after]

“Surprise saved you, Frank.” Dr. Bayer told him. He was an ex-military doctor that worked with Frank in Iran and Afghanistan. “Surprise saved you alongside with this young lady, of course. What’s her name?”

“You don’t have to care about her name, man, just get me right.”

The old doctor laughed, going on with his medical procedures to plaster Frank’s arm and ribs.

“You’ll never be right, Castle. Now, Miss, this asshole needs some rest and he needs to be taken care of. I’d thank you if you just get him out of this shit hole he calls home.”

She looked at him and blinked, like she couldn’t understand what he said.

“Could you take him to your home just until he gets better?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.” Frank muttered.

“It’s not what you want” Bayer said, coldly. “There’ll be more chasing you. Just get out of this dump for a while.”

“I’ll take him.” Karen said. “What about this… Guy?”

“I’ll take care of him.”, Bayer answered. “You took care of him as good as hell, Miss. I think you could take one of Frank’s coats to hide this bloody mess all over you clothes, right? I mean it’s not a safe neighborhood…”.

Karen nodded and went to the other room. She looked barely conscious of herself, just like a robot.

“Frank, you’re a fucking lucky man” Bayer told him, when she was gone. “She saved your life. And she is hot as hell. It's like the Devil does not want you to die. I believe you're really some kind of Punisher right?”

“Fisk is the devil who wants me dead. I don't know if I am lucky, but I know you’re an asshole.” Frank answered him.

But, he knew Bayer was right.  



	7. Quid pro Quo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a really exciting chapter to write and I loved to use Silence of the Lambs' conversation dynamics to develop a psychological bound between Karen and Frank. It really works for them, which is this ship's appeal alongside with Deborah and John's burning chemestry.  
> I hope Kolzov's story is making sense so far, it will be really important for the development of the plot.

_"Quid pro quo, Clarice, I tell you things you tell me things. Not about this case of course, but about yourself. Quid pro quo. Yes or no Clarice."_  


Dr. Hannibal Lecter – Silence of the Lambs – Harris, Thomas.

 

  
_I'm on a road,_  
_I'm on a road and I can't go back, go back_  
_A city door, the mausoleum when she invited me in_  
_Gave me a lie, smoke through my lungs and blew me_  
_a kiss through my window_

 

Knight of Noir – Suzane Sundfor

 

 

Karen wasn’t exactly the best nurse in town; she was way better digging people’s deep criminal shit and making it public. But she was trying really hard to help Frank the best way she could. Bayer gave her all instructions and medicine Frank should take and taught her how to keep Frank’s plastering clean and changing it and also what kind of food she should give him.

In the beginning, it was terrible. She generally ended up opening a cut or provoking bloodstream to come up from his wound – I will charge him my dirty bed linen, she thought it and she meant it. 

They barely talked in the first days. Karen was scared. Nightmares drown her into a psychologically exhaust mental state. Her mind trapped her over and over again in her murderous acts, suffocating her in the mud of guilt. She escaped from it during the day through reading Kolzov’s files and working on the Bulletin. She didn’t show Frank the files. She told him she would do so when he was in a better physical state. He’d probably get away to kill Kolzov without even giving it a second thought.

She kept reading carefully about Kolzov and the IGH program. Karen read about how Kolzov’s work traced back to the Cold War Russia and his connection to a strange organization called HYDRA. The man was also involved with the Russian project called Red Room, as a minor researcher in the beginning, but he ended up leading experimental enhancing drugs through mental and physical modifiers in one woman. 

_Romanoff, Natasha._ Karen whispered to herself in the dark. _Obviously that’s not who she is, but who she has become. She became a weapon._

Eventually leaving HYDRA and its Russian branch, Kolzov came to the United States to become professor and researcher in many different Universities and Colleges throughout the country. Although his department switched as he moved through the United States, his researcher was clearly one: “The Potential of Enhancing Drugs applied on Military Performance”. After that, Kolzov got involved with the military forces and got a way to experiment his discoveries in volunteers. The doctor ended up in warzone, in Afghanistan and Iran, closely watching his selected volunteers.

But then, some of the men died. Some had mental illnesses. Some killed themselves.

 _Of course, there is a pattern tracing back to Kolzov._ Karen thought, her eyes glowing in excitement. 

Somehow, he got away at first and kept his work going on in the warzone. The files Micro gave to Jones pointed out a strong friendship between him and Colonel Schoonover.

 _And this asshole is always there somehow._ Karen sighed, trying not to think on what could’ve happened to her if Frank didn’t show up.

Then, after sheets of paragraph on Kolzov’s bio and researcher life, there was a big blanket page in the file, with only a dangerous word shinning on the middle of it:

 

  
KANDAHAR

 

  
Karen stopped reading it. She took a deep breath and put the file way. She decided that tonight, she’d rather have her nightmares.

 

-

  
“You look shitty.” Frank told her one day when she was exchanging his plastering.

“What?”

“I mean, you look like you don’t have slept for days.”

“I wish I didn’t sleep.”

“Nightmares.” It was not a question.

She sighed.

“It is not the first time you kill.” He said. “But it all keeps haunting you, right?”

She looked at him, silently.

“It happens on the beginning. The first man I killed at war, I was trembling.”

“But you did it.” She said, not judging him.

“The first kid was worse.”

“You killed children?” she was disgusted.

“Suicide Bombers children. Shit, I am not proud of it. But I had to chose between letting this child die alone and letting her murder my brothers.”. Karen could listen a bit of despair and rage in his low voice.

“Did you get used to it?” she asked.

“You never get used to the war. You learn resisting it.”

“Surviving it.”

“It is like you’ve to hide a part of you somewhere so you can truly do everything you gotta do.”

She was beside him in the bed and she could see his face illuminated by her bedside lamp – his rough facial features that she internally considered it equally scary and deeply tormented, bending in a borderline of darkness and sensibility she didn’t see in no one else but Frank. She felt like hugging him, but she couldn’t move, she just kept staring at him.

“I always thought of my children when I killed the bomb kids.” He said.

“I think you got go to sleep, Frank” Karen said, wanting to avoid the painful memories.

“Tell me about your nightmares.” He was not asking.  


-

 

She told him everything about her painful nights. Schoonover said Frank had a sixth sense to get inside a people’s mind and now she believed the bastard. Castle extracted all of it from her.

“I killed Wesley. It was self defense. I killed a man that wanted to kill me. Anyone would do the same thing.” She said, staring at his face, but seeing the scenes of her past instead. “But the guy I killed that guy on your apartment… I could’ve done different. I blew his fucking brain. I blew all of it. I liked it. I wanted it…” she stopped.

“What are you hiding, ma’am?” he asked.

“I killed the man that murdered my brother. I mean, he survived a car crash. But he was… Drunk. That asshole was drunk. He knew what he was doing. I killed him. I went in his apartment and I shot him in the heart. I paid shooting lessons to do so. I planned for weeks. He invited me for date, we went to his house. I killed him there, under his own roof. I told the cops he tried to rape me.”

“But he didn’t.” Frank knew she lied to the cops.

“No. The cops believed me because this guy had rape historic in the university _campus_ , so it went to the records as self defense. That’s it. _Quid pro quo_ , right? Good night, Frank.”

She left him before he could say another word.  
  
Frank watched as she left. He drank her beautiful face while she told him all the bad shit she has been through. He drank the depth of her blues eyes shining in a guilt clamor, vibrating as two blue dark galaxies in her goddess-like face. He drank the little features of her facial expressions; he thrived with the mouth bitten while she stopped to breathe while telling her dark tales. He feasted on the spark of tears in her eyes. Castle delighted on her darkness unveiled.

 _Ain’t her first rodeo_. Frank thought, still delighted, before sleeping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going SMUT & wet in the next chapter, just hold on for it, it'll be worthy the wait ;D


	8. Chrysalis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEX! <3

[[Suggested playlist]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-OxOmsqR0&index=1&list=PLIINOEzh-j-6o3AReChh5G8DA3eGdaN_M)

  
_“Did you ever think, Clarice, why the Philistines don't understand you? It's because you are the answer to Samson's riddle. You are the honey in the lion.”_

 

Dr. Hannibal Lecter, to Clarice Starling – Hannibal – Harris, Thomas.

 

She didn’t notice how they were growing closer, day after day. She thought that caring about Frank would be a burden, but Karen and the Punisher started to get along really well. More than she’d expect. Actually, at some point, she started to associate Frank’s status on her life as a friend. A rational part of her tried every day to remember that it wasn’t healthy to be friends with a murderer, but the other part of her was stronger, that part which has always believed Frank and made her search through heaven and hell to help him. 

Now, they spend a lot of time talking. Frank wasn’t a communicative person, in the traditional conception of it, but he had an interesting way to think about things and he had the urge to share memories on his past so he could somehow keep it at hand. Karen listened carefully, helping him to remember his family and his past happiness. And he possessed that gift that allowed him to extract things from her; he could read her as easily as a book with his sixth sense, as Schoonover once told her. Karen started to share things about her job with him, she liked to listen to his opinion on her writing (although he was not obviously a theoretician or something like that), helping her to keep her style accessible and interesting to all the different people that would read her words.

Karen also started to have weird dreams with Frank. They were not harmful nightmares.

Castle gave her very pleasant dreams. Of course, she pretended to forget about them during daylight.

 

“What about your boyfriend?” Frank asked her.

“I don’t have a boyfriend” 

“Don’t lie.” Frank said, his eyes searching her face.

“I’m not lying. I haven’t talked to Matt for a while. And I don’t want to.” She said, eating her Chinese food beside the bed. 

“Why?”

“I told you, he hurts people. And he lies.” 

“Hmm.”

“Time to sleep, Mr. Castle. I swear I’ll give you Chinese food when you get better”, she said smiling, and getting up; she didn’t want to talk about Daredevil.

“Do you still love him?”

“He doesn’t hurt me anymore.” She said, leaving the room and turning off the lights.

 

  
Karen started to enjoy the opportunity to look at Frank and touching him. She started to slow down when changing the plastering. As the days gone by and he healed faster and faster, she started to notice all the war marks on his body, there were plenty of them on his torso and his arms, they were like a highway, these scars, complex roads from a thousand battles, joining together to birth a soldier, a warrior, a man who was hurt outside and destroyed inside. She also noticed how he was though. His muscles were like rocks, he looked unbreakable. Karen discovered how deeply she loved looking at him, all of him, like he was a masterpiece, a book she could read a thousand times, an Egyptian mystery she could spend her whole life unveiling.

And then, she got struck by the fact that she desired him.

  
  
“You’re healing.” Bayer said. “In fact, I think you are almost ready to get out of this beautiful lady’s hair.”

“Are his ribs okay?” Karen asked.

“Yeah, actually, I think he is completely fine when it comes to physical condition, but I always recommend some extra resting time to the patient so I can be sure I’m right.” 

“I hope it is not a lot of time, I gotta work to do, old man. I am really tired of feeling like a bag” Frank said.

“You should be thankful you’re a war machine. A weaker man would have died.” The doctor told him, seriously. “Well, I got to go, I’ve patients who actually pay me to see them.

Karen, do not break his bones”, he blinked to her and she felt like he knew about her dirty dreams with Frank and suddenly she became as red as an apple.

  
  
He touched her.

That was so sudden, accidental, and it made her feel like she was ripped in two by a thunder. His skin touched her wrist as they talk while she sat beside him in her bed, eating Chinese food. Her bloodstream accelerated, her body trembled. It shocked her how her body’s response to Frank was immediate and beyond her rational control. It was different from changing plastering or giving him medicine, it felt like she ached for his body, urgently. She knew she was wet. 

“I’m done with this food. I’m going to bed. Good night.” She said, abruptly interrupting their friendly conversation. 

“Stay. Please.” He said and held her wrist as she was about to leave the bed. 

That was Karen’s point of no return.

 

It was Frank’s point of no return as well. He was tired of pretending that both of them did not want to fuck. Because that was written all over Karen’s face. He was a soldier specialized in reading people’s reaction, he learned that to survive and Karen’s desire was so obvious as if she was carrying a red flag.

She stood right beside him and he threw her onto the bed, covering her body with his.

“Frank, we can’t…” but she did not finish the sentence, interrupted by a lustful bite on her neck. She moaned, dragged by desire and pain. He tore her clothes apart; they fell apart as if they were sheets of paper and he fell into sucking her breasts as if he were a thirsty man who just found a water fountain after days in the desert. They kissed desperately, like two possessed beats into a fight for the very right of existence. She bit and scratched all his body while he took his own clothes always. She was scarlet, her skin deep red and under him she looked as the most desirable creature on the world. They kept kissing and crawling into each other, leaving blood trails and marks and suddenly they were naked.

Karen surprised him. She got over him somehow and started to kiss and bite his whole body, going down into his dick. She kissed it very softly, while caressing his balls. Then she began to lick his head and stroke the body. She got to suck him hard, strong and fast while stroking his balls. Then, she sucked his balls and stroked his body. She repeated the pattern and added other very special tricks, giving him a special look into the abyss, stopping when he was almost coming on her mouth. 

Then, it was payback time.

 

 

He definitely missed eating pussy and sucking Karen felt like paradise. He did his best, rubbing her clit with his tongue, while penetrating her with his fingers. She moaned and trembled, screamed and damned him. He bitted her thighs and licked her nub very slowly while his fingers kept getting faster and faster. He deepened into her, burying his tongue until he got to her core and his fingers stimulated her clitoris, while she screamed his name and she convulsed according to the rhythm of his stimulation.

She came and howled to him, spreading her essence into his mouth.  


 

He finally possessed her, doggy style.

She held the headboard so she could really have support, as Frank vigorously hammered into her, and all the bed shaking with them, about to collapse, while he cursed and slapped her ass so hard she knew there would be marks for the next days. He pulled her hair and bitted her back, holding her breasts, his hands busy between there and her clit, while finally coming inside her, luckily she had a condom. He fell beside her, exhausted, both of them bathed in sweated, the whole room smelling sweet and sensual. She couldn’t stare at him, she barely could think, and she fell asleep, feeling his presence beside her.  
She didn’t dream at all that night.

 

Karen woke up next morning, remembering everything that happened and asking herself if she had dreamed about it again. But her lusciously profaned body told her that last night was real. 

And she was alone. Frank was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I will try harder next time to write a sex scene. I swear I will.  
> But as it is their first time, I think it was pretty good. I mean, it is strange to be someone for the first time, when you are desire blind and wants to do everything, but you don't know the other's person body and you don't really get to be you best. But now that they have a connection, I think the next sex scenes will be better developed and more detailed (I am SO tired of both Muaythai and pole dancing that I couldn't be as careful as I know I could.)  
> But next time, I'll be more careful, don't leave me, please =)


	9. Bad Habit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry for the long wait. I'm really busy right now.  
> I'd like to apologize as well for my English mistakes. I usually write during night after having a whole day of working/studying/training (I'm both a pole dancer and Muaythai fighter) so it is not easy to be aware of grammar in a really tired state of mind. But I'll try to get better.  
> Hope you enjoy the chapter. I think next two or three will be really smut, before going back to the real investigative plot.

  
_And Hades is king of the scythe and the sword_  
_He covers the world in the color of rust_  
_He scrapes the sky and scars the earth_  
_And he comes down heavy and hard on us_

 _But even that hardest of hearts unhardened_  
_Suddenly when he saw her there_  
_Persephone in her mother’s garden_  
_Sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair_  
_The smell of the flowers she held in her hand_  
_And the pollen that fell from her fingertips_  
_And suddenly Hades was only a man_  
_With a taste of nectar upon his lips, singing_

 

Anais Mitchell – Hadestown – Epic (Part II)

 

 _“Dr. Fell, do you believe a man could become so obsessed with a woman, from a single encounter?_  
_Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her and find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight and ache for him?”_

 

― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

 

 _I am the voice inside your head_  
_and I control you_  
_I am the lover in your bed_  
_and I control you_  
_I am the sex that you provide_  
_and I control you_  
_I am the hate you try to hide_  
_and I control you_

 

Mr. Self Destruction – Nine Inch Nails

 

 

“You ever think about him?” Elisson asked her.

  
“What?” She asked, suddenly changing her mood, from the satisfied mood she got when Elisson just got into her office to compliment her for the successful text she just published about Roxx corp.’s threatening investments against the Spanish Harlem community.

“I mean Castle, of course. They call him the Punisher now, or whatever.”

 _Oh, at least 30 seconds of every day. I can’t help it. He’s always with me… Like a bad habit_. Karen thought, silently trying to pretend she didn’t feel anything about Castle and pleading the Gods her facial features did not betray her.

“Sometimes. Maybe. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“They still talk about the Punisher. That’s why I ask you about him. There were some crimes that… Crimes that fit his style. I heard from the cops, on the street. Maybe you’re willing to write about him again?”

“No. Dead people don’t make headlines, right?”

“He may not be dead. I think you should go after that. You were his number one supporter”

“I can think about that, sure.”

Elisson looked at her and his investigative eyes explored her face, suspicious.

“You know, Page, if he wasn’t a psycho killer…”

“He isn’t.” She couldn’t help.

Elisson laughed.

“I would say you know more about him than you show. You survived him, three times.”

“I’m lucky.”

“Hm. Maybe.” He was still suspicious, but he moved to the door, still starring at her. “Well, you search about him. Tell me what is going on, if there’s enough material for a headline.”

“Sure”, she tried to look fine, but she got really relieved when he left her office. The last thing she needed was her boss finding out she had sex with the Punisher.

 

 

_Frank, what are you doing?_

She researched about the crimes that Elisson mentioned and she found out that a lot of war veterans from Iran and Afghanistan were recently either killed or hospitalized in a brutalized state. Most of them, not surprisingly, were connected to Schoonover and they were badly injured when they got to the hospital. Others weren’t involved, but had historic of violence against women, children and animal. Those were killed, for what she learned on the official records she got to access through Elisson. The others who were connected to Schoonover were left alive. Obviously he did it on purpose, she knew it.

She guessed he was shooting on the dark. He did not take the Jones’ files the day he left, so he did not know enough to do something more than trying to brutally extract answers from Schoonover’s associated, but Karen doubted they knew anything about Kandahar and Combat Enhancer program.

 _Why don’t you just come back?_ She thought, exhausted of waiting and aching for him.

 

 

Karen knew someone was walking behind her. She was getting back home from the Bulletin and she knew someone was following her on the street. She turned to look around her, but it was apparently empty. She held her purse tight to her body, feeling the volume of her 0.380 inside it. Whoever was it would not survive if they tried to mess with her.  
But she heard a shot before she could think anything else, she heard the heavy sound of a body falling to the ground and she turned to look behind her, seeing Frank stopped on the middle of the street, handing his big gun, his white skull burning on the dark.

“Be careful, ma’am. This guy was about to shot you.” He said.

“I can take care of myself.” She said, stubborn, but deep inside feeling nervous and deeply scared for having someone following her and trying to harm her again.

“I’m not discussing it” he said, ironically.

“Frank, we gotta talk. I have to show you the files.”

She saw a strange spark on his eyes.

“You’ve to come home and I’ll show you.” She said. She was pretending, for the sake of his vengeful crusade, they had never fucked like two animals during the whole night and that she did not have to feel the marks of his spanking on her ass for days.

“Are you sure, ma’am?”

“Just show up, we can talk.” She said, trying to smile. “You can just come with me, right now.”

“Right.” She turned to walk again, but she knew he wasn’t coming. He’d show up when he wanted to.

 

 

He came one night when she was studying the files she got about the old veterans from the hospital registers trying to cross them with information on Kozlov’s files she read. She still did not read about Kandahar. She was waiting for him. She thought it would be more respectable if the two of them just read it together. Maybe she did not want to face the truth alone.

“Hey” she said, getting up from her couch and getting near to the window, opening it for him. He came from the fire escape, sliding inside her apartment. “I’m glad you showed up.”

She couldn’t say other word to keep the emulation of formal Karen, like she intended to, pretending she did not take care of him for days, pretending to forget their long nocturnal conversation about her life and his past or fucked him all night long, because Frank grabbed her and dragged her into a kiss she thought he would suck her lungs out of her. She let him in, as he invaded her, destroying all her careful built defenses. She held him; she held his neck and hooked him with her legs in his waist, as he firmly lifted her from the ground, placing her against the nearest wall. 

She felt his hard cock against the middle of her legs – she was glad she was using a skirt – his hardness rubbing her panties, while she moaned in their animal kiss. Her nails left trails on his body, he groaned dirty things into her ear when he stopped kissing her lips, after that exploring her neck. She felt they were possessed, crawling together in the wall, his rough lips aching to devour each part of her skin as she answered his hungriness with her own, making him bleed from the pressure on her long nails.

“FRANK!” she screamed, when he somehow got his trousers and underpants out of the way, easily getting her panties out of the way and getting inside her. He slid easily inside her, thrusting roughly and sorely into her, as she bite his neck deep enough to take more blood out of him. He turned the bite back on her neck and for a moment they stood there, just causing painful pleasure to each other. Then, she let him go and he released himself into her.

They slowly fell to the ground, Frank still inside her.

And that was only the beginning of the night.

Karen thought she could get used to a bad habit like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend them to fuck, but it happened. I think Frank might be really hungry and animal, somehow just wanting to possess Karen, so it came naturally. The next chapters will be really more detailed in the sexual description as they develop their intimacy dynamics and get to explore each other during the sex.  
> Also, I'd like to hear anything from you, so, please, comment if you are willing to. A fic writer does not strive on kudos only =)


End file.
